Richard Long
dal 25/3/2011 al 30/7/2011
Segnalato da
25/3/2011
Richard Long
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
Berlin Circle. The centre and inspiration for this exhibition is the eponymous work 'Berlin Circle'. The circle of stone, twelve metres in diameter, laid out on the floor is an important work in the Sammlung Marx and was first unveiled and installed by the artist for the opening of the Hamburger Bahnhof in 1996. It serves as the thematic focal point of today's show.
curated by Eugen Blume
The Nationalgalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart is proud
to present the exhibition ‘Richard Long. Berlin Circle’, which will run from 26
March until 31 July 2011. It will be the first solo show in Germany of works by
the artist to be held in a major museum in almost ten years. The focus and
inspiration for this exhibition is formed by the eponymous work ‘Berlin Circle’,
dating from 1996, which features in the Sammlung Marx.
‘My art is in the nature of things’
Richard Long
A new work by the artist, the ‘River Avon Mud Circle’, will also be specially
created for the show in the museum.
This exhibition also pays tribute to the long-term commitment to the Nation-
algalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof on the part of the collector Erich Marx, who
will be celebrating his 90th birthday this spring.
Richard Long (*1945, Bristol, England) is one of the leading protagonists of
‘Land Art’, along with Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria and Robert Smithson.
Coinciding with the first ecological movements in the USA and Europe, Land
Art was first created in the 1960s by artists working concurrently but sepa-
rately from each other, as a critical reaction to the classical genre of sculpture
and the commercial art market. The transient and site-specific works, hewn in
and from nature, were first unveiled to the public in 1968 in the ‘Earthworks’
exhibition at the Dwan Gallery in New York. A year later, in 1969, Gerry
Schum coined the term ‘Land Art’ in his television programme of the same
name, and it has been used ever since.
Richard Long uses the movement of his own body, the act of rambling and
walking in the countryside as both the gauge and medium for his art. One of
his earliest and most well-known works, ‘A Line Made by Walking’, from 1967,
consisted in him pacing up and down a field in a straight line so often that a
line was drawn in the grass, which the artist then captured on film in the form
of a photograph. For over 40 years now, subsequent larger works have been
created outdoors all over the world, in England, Canada, Japan and Bolivia:
composed of large stone circles or lines made of wood. These temporary
works are then documented in photographs. In contrast to such companions
of his as Heizer and Smithson, Long’s works do not amount to an intervention
in nature, executed in a series of great gestures, for he instead works with
material already at hand.
Since he started out as an artist, Long has, however, also shown works in in-
terior spaces. Here too, sculptures are created with archetypal forms of wood
or stone: ovals, lines or circles. Long explains his choice of form as follows: ‘I
like to use the symmetry of patterns between time, between places and time,
between distance and time, between stones and distance, between time and
stones. I choose lines and circles because they do the job.’
It is befitting then that the main work in the Hamburger Bahnhof exhibition,
‘Berlin Circle’, is a circle of stone, twelve metres in diameter, laid out on the
floor. ‘Berlin Circle’ is an important work in the Sammlung Marx and was first
unveiled and installed by the artist for the opening of the Hamburger Bahnhof
in 1996. It serves as a thematic focal point in today’s exhibition, emphasising
one of the artist’s core forms: the circle. Five other floor pieces are also on
display in the historical hall, along with films by and on the artist.
‘My art is in the nature of things’ says Long, referring to the topicality of his
works. By being consistently set in places where the nature of things appears
in the works, they also throw light on questions in today’s discourse on the
relationality, performativeness, transgressions and spatiality of art.
A publication, documenting the presentation of the works will be released to
coincide with the exhibition.
Image: Große Halle mit Berlin Circle von Richard Long (1996, Sammlung Marx) © bpk / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011; Foto: Jens Ziehe
Press contact
Dr. Katharina von Chlebowski / Theresa Lucius T +49 30 26394880 F +49 30 263948811 presse@elselaskerschueler.org
Anne Schäfer-Junker T +49 30 266423402 F +49 30 266423409 presse@smb.spk-berlin.de
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart
Invalidenstraße 50 - 51, 10557 Berlin
Opening Hours Tue 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Wed 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Thu 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Fri 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Sat 11:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Sun 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Mon closed
Admission fees
House ticket including temporary exhibitions: 12 Euro, concession 6 Euro